In the past, stilts have served chiefly as an amusement or recreational device, and to a lesser extent as instruments for developing a particular skill, namely, the proficient use or performance with stilts, such as ehibited by circus performers. Children have been intrigued by such a plaything which offered the possibility of walking about while standing high off the ground. However, the fact remains that the necessity of both manually manipulating and (by body movement) balancing one's shifting weight on successive, unsteady, essentially point-contacts with an uneven and distant ground surface, cannot avoid the characterization of such structure being a dangerous device which demands both slowly-acquired skill and continued practice and concentration. Alternately, "elevator" shoes which have utility when intended for regular use, are necessarily limited to producing a comparatively small elevation, for one reason in order to try to conceal that their added structure is not that of the wearer himself.